Re: SF Nursery for Homeless Children

08/15/18 - posted by Jeff Rothal

I've been doing research on William Harrison Greene (1812-1871), a San Francisco pioneer, and his sons Harry and Clay. I'm pretty sure the SF Nursery for Homeless Children started out as the private mansion he built from parts imported from China in 1849. The address was 1534 Mission, and after the Greenes owned it, it served at various times as Trinity School (a college prep school), Maclean Hospital, Spalding (or Spaulding) School, and even Dr. Harriman's Vita Pathic Sanitarium (in addition to the orphanage). Greene was President of San Francisco's first Board of Aldermen, as well as a wealthy landowner in early San Francisco, and he and his wife Elizabeth played prominent roles in St. John's Episcopal/Evangelical Church. Their oldest son Clay became a major playwright and moved to NY City; the second oldest, Harry, became a prominent Monterey citizen and preservationist; their other surviving son, Francis, was an art critic, mostly in Europe.